


plums and persimmons

by mousecat



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Brothers, Family Dynamics, Fluff, Gen, Hajime being the best big brother, Oikawa being a good boy too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:20:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22638286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousecat/pseuds/mousecat
Summary: Hajime's little brother loses his favorite stuffed animal. Hajime cheers him up with some help from Oikawa.
Kudos: 26





	plums and persimmons

Hajime was reading in the front room when his mom and little brother returned home. He turned to call a greeting out over his shoulder and saw Chiaki's round little face was blotchy and swollen from crying. He took one look at Hajime and started wailing. 

“For the love of -- I just got him to calm down,” Mayumi said. “He threw a tantrum on the bus. Completely humiliating.”

Hajime got up and hovered awkwardly as his mom wrestled Chiaki, whose cries were gaining volume, out of his shoes. Chiaki wasn't prone to tantrums. He could be really annoying and he loved to sulk, but the whole screaming and kicking his legs on floor thing - Chiaki didn't do that. 

“What happened?” Hajime asked, at the risk of pissing his mom off more. 

“My bunnyyy-y-y!” Chiaki practically shrieked.

“He lost that silly bunny, exactly like I told him he would,” she said as she neatly set his shoes aside and stood, leaving him crying on the floor. 

“Nii-chan, d-d-don't be ma-m-mad,” Chiaki sobbed. 

“You heard me tell him not to bring it out. This is what happens when you don't listen,” Mayumi said pointedly. Chiaki sobbed louder. 

Hajime scooped him up. “I'll try to calm him down.”

“You need to let him cry,” his mom said, but she was already walking away. “Otherwise he won't learn not to be careless.”

Hajime carried Chiaki upstairs. In the bathroom, he prompted his distraught little brother to blow his nose, then ran a flannel under cold water for a moment, until it was sopping. He wrung it out, then gently pressed it to Chiaki's face. 

“Take a deep breath, little bear, come on.” Hajime did his best to soothe the boy, murmuring soft commands and wiping his face with a cool cloth. Once Chiaki had quieted, Hajime asked him what happened. 

“Mo-m-m-momo,” Chiaki started, breathless sobs catching in his chest again. Hajime made him blow his nose a second time. 

“You lost Momo?” Chiaki nodded, and Hajime rubbed slow circles into his back. “Why did you tell me not to be angry?”

“He was - present - an-and - Kaki -” Chiaki dissolved into tears once more. Hajime thought he understood more or less though. He had gotten a pair of bunnies for Chiaki for his birthday. They had been stitched together, a big one and a little one, and after explaining to Hajime that they were brothers, Chiaki insisted they be separated and that Hajime keep Kaki, the older brother. 

“Hey, hush, little bear. Breathe, okay? I'm not angry. Take your time and try to tell me why you're so sad.”

The strangeness of Chiaki's behavior outweighed the usual annoyance of trying to work through a four year old's reasoning. Several times he almost calmed himself, but as soon as he tried talking he got worked up again. 

“Are you worried about Momoko?” Hajime eventually asked. Chiaki nodded after a long moment. “He'll be okay, little bear. You know what I bet happened? Just after you dropped Momo, a little girl found him. She looked around but couldn't find you.”

Chiaki quickly quieted. Now Hajime had his interest. 

“So she took him home. She has lots of stuffed animals, twenty of them, and they all get to snuggle with her when she sleeps,” Hajime said. “They'll look after him.”

“Won't Kaki be lonely without him?” Chiaki asked in a watery voice. 

“Maybe a little, but he has us, and he'll be happy to know Momo has so many friends.”

Chiaki's lip trembled. “Wouldn't you miss me if I got lost, nii-chan?”

The question prompted a terrible thought for a split second, before Hajime's brain could shut it down. It made his chest seize up. He pushed the feeling away easily though, because the possibility of anything happening to Chiaki was so remote; nothing bad could ever touch him. 

“More than anything, kiddo. Of course I would. But it's different with animals,” he said. “Remember when Mrs Honda's cat had kittens? The kittens were only six weeks old when they left their mama for new families. It's normal for animals to find a new family, not like humans who keep the same family forever.”

Chiaki seemed to accept this logic, but he made Hajime promise to explain everything to Kaki and make sure he didn't feel bad. 

That seemed to resolve the matter, except for a tense moment at dinner when his mom brought it up again - “I don't want to hear one more word about that bunny” - but Chiaki didn't seem to notice.

That evening Hajime tried to be extra nice to his little brother. If Chiaki were a more cunning four year old, he may have played up his sadness over Momo’s disappearance to capitalize on his nii-chan's extra attention and affection. Instead, he seemed plenty happy to share his crayons and coloring book without any additional fuss. 

He did have a few questions though. 

“What kind of animals are Momo's new friends?”

“There's a bear, a dolphin, and uh...a bird. The bird is fat and squishy,” Hajime said without much thought. 

“You said there were twenty! That's only two.”

“Three,” Hajime corrected automatically. He tried to distract Chiaki by asking him to count to twenty. He loved showing off his counting skills. 

Chiaki had grabbed a blank sheet of paper, and while he counted he drew. After a few moments Hajime recognized the middle figure as a child's best rendering of a friendly, lop eared bunny. It helped that on either side of the bunny was a bear and a very round bird. He could only assume the small strange fish under the bird was a dolphin. 

Together they filled up the page with Momo's new friends - a hamster, a pair of puppies, an alligator with wings. When Chiaki finished, he handed the picture to Hajime. 

“Dear Kaki-ko.” He paused. “Nii-chan, write it down!”

Hajime grabbed a dark green crayon and flipped the paper over. 

“Dear Kaki-ko, these are all Momoko's friends. Don't be sad,” he said, watching Hajime dutifully transcribing words he couldn't read.

“Anything else, little bear?”

“Put ‘we love you too.’” Hajime held up the note for Chiaki to inspect and received approval. 

*****

That night when Chiaki got into bed, Hajime brought him Kaki. 

“I explained everything to him, and he's not mad,” he told him. Chiaki looked down but nodded. “He asked if he could sleep with you tonight. He doesn't want either of you to feel sad about missing Momo.”

Chiaki took the bunny his big brother held out for him and gently rubbed one long ear, the way he used to do with Momo. “Hey Kaki-ko,” he said softly. He looked back at Hajime. “You won’t be lonely, nii-chan?”

“I’ll be okay. Sleep tight, little bear.”

******

Hajime pulled his wallet from his pocket to recount his money. Unfortunately more hadn't materialized since he'd counted it before practice. His options were limited to only a few stuffed animals on the shelf, none of which were his first choice. 

"I like the sun bear," Oikawa said. He'd appeared behind Hajime, apparently out of thin air. Hajime snapped his wallet shut. 

"I don't," Hajime said. It cost nearly twice what he had. 

"Well, which are you considering? I can give you my professional opinion."

"Because you're a professional four year old?" Hajime relented though, pointing out which stuffed animals he was trying to choose from. 

"Do you want to borrow some money?" Oikawa said, because of course he noticed they were the cheapest in the store. Stupidkawa. 

"No thanks, Stupidkawa. I want one of these ones." Hajime waited while Oikawa picked up the toys, inspecting each as if he was trying to determine the clarity of a diamond. It was annoying enough on its own, but Hajime noticed the clerk was watching them suspiciously. It always irritated him when stores assumed he was going to steal stuff just because he was a kid. He didn't want anything so bad that he'd take it without paying. 

"This one." Oikawa practically shoved a big stuffed turtle in his face. It was a muddy shade of green that would have made Hajime overlook it if his wallet was fuller. "It's the biggest one, and it's super soft."

Hajime ran his hands over the plush shell. Oikawa was right. Chiaki wouldn't want to let go of it once he got his hands on it. He probably wouldn't even notice the color. 

When Hajime set his selection on the counter, the clerk leaned forward, peering down like he expected to see a couple more plushies fall from a stuffed shirt. “Is that all?”

_What a jerk._

“I’m getting these for Chiaki,” Oikawa said, waving some colorful foil stickers in Hajime’s face. It was annoying, but not as annoying as how well Oikawa knew him. Hajime swatted his hand away, taking the moment to check his temper and fix a polite smile. 

"That's all," he said. Once his wallet was emptied for the clerk, who checked every coin for counterfeits to drive home how much he didn’t like unsupervised kids in his store, he turned back to Oikawa and the shiny butterfly stickers he'd picked out for Chiaki. "You better not let my parents see those."

Oikawa rolled his eyes. "I wasn't born yesterday." Like Hajime, Oikawa was a resistor in the ongoing war to curb Chiaki's natural attraction to pretty things, which had been raging in the Iwaizumi household since Chiaki was old enough to grab at all things sparkly, shiny, or colorful. _Girly_ things. 

Along with the stickers, Oikawa bought a mountain of candy, paid for with from the stack of banknotes that never seemed to thin for him. He was ridiculously spoiled. 

"I got you a meiji bar." Oikawa held the chocolate out to Hajime as they left the shop. 

"I'm not hungry," Hajime said. 

"So save it for later. You always want chocolate.”

Hajime took the bar. Stupidkawa. As they neared their street, he handed the turtle over to Oikawa.

“I’ll call you before we come over, okay?”

*****

Hajime scooped up Chiaki and carried him to the genkan. Chiaki giggled and squirmed in Hajime’s arms until he was set down on his feet.

“Ready to see Tooru?”

“And Takeru?” Chiaki’s face was pure sunshine. It sucked telling him no when he looked like that.

“I told you, kiddo,” Hajime said as he slipped on Chiaki’s shoes. “Takeru’s at his house today. But Tooru-nii asked us to come over and maybe watch a movie. It’s going to be fun.”

Chiaki grabbed Hajime’s hand as soon as he’d straightened up. He never complained about holding hands with someone older when they went out. He clung to Hajime as he asked about what they would watch, and could he pick it, and could they have snacks? When they rounded the corner onto Oikawa’s street, Hajime immediately spotted the stuffed turtle he’d bought several meter’s ahead of them, sitting on the sidewalk right in front of Oikawa’s house.

 _Idiot._ Hajime thought. Oikawa wasn’t supposed to leave it in front of his own house. It was way too obvious like that. Chiaki spotted seconds later, and started tugging at Hajime’s hand.

“Nii-chan, what’s that? I wanna see.” Hajime let himself be pulled along until Chiaki could stoop and grab the toy, not once letting go of his brother’s hand. “Nii-chan! It’s a turtle! Look!”

“I see it,” Hajime said. “I wonder where it came from?”

Chiaki looked at the house. “It must be Tooru-nii’s. I’ll give it back to him.”

Hajime was pulled again, and he went along easily. Chiaki’s face was bright with the determination to take the turtle to its proper home. He didn’t even greet Oikawa when he opened the door, instead thrusting the plushie at him and telling him not to worry, it was okay now because they found his turtle.

“This isn’t mine,” Oikawa said, frowning at the turtle like he’d never even heard of such an animal before. It was a good thing Oikawa was obsessed with playing volleyball and not becoming an actor.

“But it was out there,” Chiaki argued. “We rescued her and brought her back, Tooru-nii.”

“Someone passing by must have lost her,” Hajime said. “It’s a good thing you found her, Chiakkun.”

“Shouldn’t we find her family?” Chiaki looked earnestly between the older boys.

Oikawa knelt in front of him to help him with his shoes. “You leave that to me, Chiakkun. I’ll try to find where she lives, if you and nii-chan help look after her. How does that sound?”

Chiaki nodded and beamed at the plushie, stroking a soft flipper.

“Hey, can I have a hug?” Oikawa asked. Chiaki didn’t hesitate to throw his arms around Oikawa’s neck. Over Chiaki’s shoulder, Oikawa stuck his tongue out at Hajime.

*****

Hajime pulled the blanket over Chiaki’s shoulders and smoothed it. Chiaki rubbed his face against Sumomo’s shell and hugged Kaki to his chest. The turtle had replaced Chiaki’s pillow almost as soon as they brought her home.

“Nii-chan,” Chikai said softly, “will you stay until I fall asleep?” 

“Sure, but we can’t talk a lot,” Hajime said. He sat beside Chiaki on the bed. “You need to go to sleep, and I don't want to keep you up.”

“Sumomo said she misses her brothers and sisters, but she’s happy with us, too. She likes having a bunny brother.” Chiaki’s voice was drifting already. He was a really good sleeper. “She can’t hop. Kaki’s hops make her laugh.”

“I’m glad you found her, kiddo,” Hajime said. “Are you warm enough?”

“Mm.” Chiaki paused long enough that Hajime thought for a moment that he must be asleep, until he spoke again softly, in the kind of voice people only use in the last seconds before sleep. “I wanna dream of Sumomo teaching bunnies to swim.”

Hajime smiled. He hoped Chiaki would.


End file.
